Learn more
 

How to connect Amazon QuickSight to Dynamics 365 Data


Create a connection to Dynamics 365 data in CData Connect Cloud and insert Dynamics 365 data into Amazon QuickSight SPICE to build interactive dashboards.

Amazon QuickSight allows users to build interactive dashboards in the cloud. When paired with CData Connect Cloud, you get cloud-to-cloud access to Dynamics 365 data for visualizations, dashboards, and more. This article shows how to connect to Dynamics 365 in Connect Cloud and build dashboards in Amazon QuickSight with access to Dynamics 365 data.

CData Connect Cloud provides a pure cloud-to-cloud interface for Dynamics 365, allowing you to allowing build visualizations from Dynamics 365 data in Amazon QuickSight. By importing your Dynamics 365 data into the Amazon QuickSight "Super-fast, Parallel, In-memory Calculation Engine" (SPICE), you can leverage the powerful data processing features of the Amazon ecosystem to build responsive dashboards. And with the ability to schedule refreshes of the data stored in SPICE, you control how up-to-date your dashboards are.

About Dynamics 365 Data Integration

CData simplifies access and integration of live Microsoft Dynamics 365 data. Our customers leverage CData connectivity to:

  • Read and write data in the full Dynamics 365 ecosystem: Sales, Customer Service, Finance & Operations, Marketing, and more.
  • Extend the native features of Dynamics CRM with customizable caching and intelligent query aggregation and separation.
  • Authenticate securely with Dynamics 365 in a variety of ways, including Azure Active Directory, Azure Managed Service Identity credentials, and Azure Service Principal using either a client secret or a certificate.
  • Use SQL stored procedures to manage their Dynamics 365 entities - listing, creating, and removing associations between entities.

CData customers use our Dynamics 365 connectivity solutions for a variety of reasons, whether they're looking to replicate their data into a data warehouse (alongside other data sources)or analyze live Dynamics 365 data from their preferred data tools inside the Microsoft ecosystem (Power BI, Excel, etc.) or with external tools (Tableau, Looker, etc.).


Getting Started


Configure Dynamics 365 Connectivity for Amazon QuickSight

Connectivity to Dynamics 365 from Amazon QuickSight is made possible through CData Connect Cloud. To work with Dynamics 365 data from Amazon QuickSight, we start by creating and configuring a Dynamics 365 connection.

  1. Log into Connect Cloud, click Connections and click Add Connection
  2. Select "Dynamics 365" from the Add Connection panel
  3. Enter the necessary authentication properties to connect to Dynamics 365.

    Edition and OrganizationUrl are required connection properties. The Dynamics 365 connector supports connecting to the following editions: CustomerService, FieldService, FinOpsOnline, FinOpsOnPremise, HumanResources, Marketing, ProjectOperations and Sales.

    For Dynamics 365 Business Central, use the separate Dynamics 365 Business Central driver.

    OrganizationUrl is the URL to your Dynamics 365 organization. For instance, https://orgcb42e1d0.crm.dynamics.com

  4. Click Create & Test
  5. Navigate to the Permissions tab in the Add Dynamics 365 Connection page and update the User-based permissions.

Add a Personal Access Token

If you are connecting from a service, application, platform, or framework that does not support OAuth authentication, you can create a Personal Access Token (PAT) to use for authentication. Best practices would dictate that you create a separate PAT for each service, to maintain granularity of access.

  1. Click on your username at the top right of the Connect Cloud app and click User Profile.
  2. On the User Profile page, scroll down to the Personal Access Tokens section and click Create PAT.
  3. Give your PAT a name and click Create.
  4. The personal access token is only visible at creation, so be sure to copy it and store it securely for future use.

With the connection configured, you are ready to connect to Dynamics 365 data from Amazon QuickSight.

Import Dynamics 365 Data into SPICE and Create Interactive Dashboards

The steps below outline creating a new data set based on the connection to Dynamics 365 in Connect Cloud, importing the dataset into SPICE, and building a simple visualization from the data.

  1. Log into Amazon QuickSight and click "Manage data."
  2. Click "Now data set," select SQL Server as the data source, configure the connection to your Connect Cloud instance, and click "Create data source."
  3. Select a table to visualize (or subait a custom SQL query for your data).
  4. Click "Edit/Preview data" to customize the data set.
  5. Select "Import to SPICE for quicker analytics" and click "Visualize."
  6. Select fields to visualize and a visual type.

Schedule Refreshes for SPICE Data Sets

QuickSight users can schedule refreshes for data sets that are imported into SPICE, ensuring that data being analyzed is only as old as the most recent refresh.

  1. Navigate to the QuickSight home page.
  2. Click "Manage data."
  3. Select the data set you wish to refresh.
  4. Click "Schedule refresh."
  5. Click Create, configure the refresh settings (time zone, repeat frequency, and starting datetime), and click Create.

Live Access to Dynamics 365 Data from Cloud Applications

At this point, you have a direct, cloud-to-cloud connection to Dynamics 365 data from your Amazon QuickSight dashboard. You can create new visualizations, build interactive dashboards, and more. For more information on gaining live access to data from more than 100 SaaS, Big Data, and NoSQL sources from cloud applications like Amazon QuickSight, refer to our Connect Cloud page.

Ready to get started?

Learn more about CData Connect Cloud or sign up for free trial access:

Free Trial

In this article

Related articles